Kwentong May Bahay - The Woes of Ironing

I had to tell hubby prior to getting married that one of the things that I will never do when we get married is iron his clothes. As part of our verbal agreement, in no circumstances will I be forced to iron hubby's clothes. Hubby of course agreed. For the first year of our marriage, when we were both working, hubby would iron his own clothes (since we were practically destitute at that time and couldn't afford to have them ironed by a laundromat). Poor thing. Our clothes would always be laundered by the kilo and kanya-kanyang plantsa. Until such time that we took advantage of my mom's generosity to have our laundry done at her house as long as we pay the water and the laundry woman. This went on for a year or so. Pretty soon, the laundry woman would make extra by cleaning our house too. Long story short, we fired the laundry woman for stealing money.

The inevitable had presented itself. I was a stay at home wife (I prefer the term, executive wife) with no laundry woman. What to do, what to do. Hubby and I decided that we could live with clothes washed by a reliable washing machine instead and that the ironing could be done by the laundromat. Three problems with that. One, it's expensive. Two, it will entail driving (and parking) on my part. Lastly and most importantly, I would have to lug our mountain of laundry to and from the car. Not my idea of fun.

We purchased a new washing machine last year and I told hubby that I would rather do the ironing at home than lugging it all over the place. Most women have done ironing, why can't I? Ironing used to take me the whole afternoon and would often be filled with cursing and wrestling with hubby's humongous trousers and jeans. The khakis were absolute murder, I forbade hubby to use them. Until now, hubby always asks, "Can I wear khaki today?" Wawa naman.

Until lazy me, decided that I will immediately iron our clothes as soon as it comes out of the spin cycle. Lo and behold, my ironing time was cut from 4 hours to 1, for a full load of laundry. Woo hoo! No more waiting for the clothes to dry, no more spritzing, no more steaming. The wrinkles in our clothes straighten out immediately as soon as the hot iron touched them. Drying time is practically nil. If the clothes are still slightly damp after ironing, I simply place them on a hanger and let nature take its course. Ironing is not as unpleasant as it was before.

Ok....ok.... so I do it in an air-conditioned room. Who says you have to look like a wilted flower when you do the ironing anyway?